Milman Renovation

I will never hire Milman again.

Completion time promised - 2-3 months, but with an average of just one worker working one or two days a week, and in some weeks - no work at all - work took 6 months. This is exactly also true with a laneway garage conversion project this contractor is doing for my former girlfriend - exactly the same thing, leading to delays of months in completion time far beyond the promised completion time.

My basement was bare concrete, only house perimeter walls, and a few support columns, but still - they built crooked walls, as in - starting in one point on the floor and ceiling, and curving instead of going in a straight line from one end of a wall to the other. Perpendicular walls that are not at 90 degrees to one another. If there were some structural restrictions forcing these issues - that would be one thing, but they had a bare bones basement to work with, a blank canvas, and they couldn't build straight walls?

Instead of having an experienced builder/contractor walking me through what sick a build new to have considered - I either had to say it, or they did it however they thought it should be done.
Example - power outlets, lights, and switches. Where should they be located? I never did such a project, so I didn't even think about it, but they are supposed to be experienced in this, so why didn't they walk around the place with me and explain what we need to consider, what do they recommend, etc? After the work was done, and I realized we never properly planned these things, and asked for changes - the answer was why didn't I think about this before, as things were already installed.

Another example. Does the customer need to consider the impact that adding more HVAC outlets would have a negative impact on the air flow and pressure of the entire house, or should the experienced and who paid contractor do that? So now I'm screwed, with lower air pressure and flow, but nothing 9 can do about this now that wouldn't cost me thousands of dollars, as all the ducts have already been covered by the ceiling drywall sheets.

We have an entire correspondence where we discussed what the project would include, like - dividing my basement into two separate units, one for rental and the other for my personal use, including putting in two enlarged windows - one in each unit, to allow for a code compliant fire escape, I have this in writing, and when I asked to include that in the work agreement - I was told "no problem, don't worry", but it wasn't, and now there's only pine such window.

This team is also building a laneway house garage conversion for my former girlfriend, which also tells me how work was done one or two days a week most of the time, causing a huge delay, with the financial impact that this caused her and also me, as both of us couldn't start renting out when planned.

To add insult to injury - with my girlfriend's project, months after the work started already, funds were already borrowed and made available - my former girlfriend gets told by then that - oops! They miscalculated the project costs by SEVERAL DOZEN PERCENT, and an additional SIX FIGURES AMOUNT was required. Months after the work already started, work money being borrowed on a very tight margin, and now she needs to figure out where to get this additional and unplanned for huge amount of money. The contractor's claim was that my ex GF asked for changes and additions that weren't budgeted for, which is false, because the contractor told my ex GF that it was their mistake when giving her the initial cost estimate, nothing to do with any changes later on, but even if that was true - isn't it the contractor's role and responsibility to inform the client about how much anything they might ask for would impact costs by? Again - is this the client's responsibility to do?

Very unprofessional work, making the only recommendation that at least I can give is - stay away from this contractor.

Maybe they did great work for some other clients, but they did a terrible job, causing real emotional stress and financial losses for me and for my former girlfriend.

Two years later - now the laminate flooring that they put in without first leveling the concrete floor below it - those laminate boards are starting to crack and break because they are laid over the uneven surface. I certainly will end up paying dearly for hiring these amateurs.